SPACE ELDER; WEIGHTLESS GLENN SAYS THE RIDE'S GREAT.Byline: John Noble Wilford The New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of Times On his second day in orbit, 77-year-old John Glenn was feeling fine, eating well and working hard Friday, and so were his crew mates aboard the space shuttle space shuttle, reusable U.S. space vehicle. Developed by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), it consists of a winged orbiter, two solid-rocket boosters, and an external tank. Discovery. For auld lang syne Auld Lang Syne closing song of New Year’s Eve. [Music: Leach, 91] See : Farewell , the people of Perth on the western coast of Australia had their lights on in full glow, and Glenn saw them as the shuttle passed to the north, just as he had so memorably done during his first space flight on Feb. 20, 1962. The astronauts got busy early Friday, deploying a small communications satellite communications satellite artificial satellite that functions as part of a global radio-communications network. Echo 1, the first communications satellite, launched in 1960, was an instrumented inflatable sphere that passively reflected radio signals back to , processing metal alloys and semiconductor materials Semiconductor materials are insulators at absolute zero temperature that conduct electricity in a limited way at room temperature (see also Semiconductor). The defining property of a semiconductor material is that it can be doped with impurities that alter its electronic properties , and studying the effects of space weightlessness weightlessness, the absence of any observable effects of gravitation. This condition is experienced by an observer when he and his immediate surroundings are allowed to move freely in the local gravitational field. on the human body and how it relates to aging. In a televised report from Discovery, Glenn smiled and declared, ``It's been a great ride so far.'' He said the launching on Thursday ``was quite different from the ride I got long, long ago.'' And he said he was enjoying the freedom to float weightlessly in the shuttle, which is far more spacious than the tiny cockpit he occupied on his first flight. Glenn said he had suffered no motion sickness motion sickness, waves of nausea and vomiting experienced by some people, resulting from the sudden changes in movement of a vehicle. The ailment is also known as seasickness, car sickness, train sickness, airsickness, and swing sickness. and was eating heartily. He joked that in weightlessness a speck of food stuck on his glasses. ``To be able to float freely up here - I just wish everyone could experience this,'' Glenn said. Mission officials said the shuttle was also performing well. They said they expected no curtailment of the flight or hazard during the descent and landing because a cover fell off a parachute compartment during the launching. Engineers are still investigating the cause and possible implications of the malfunction. At a news conference at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Jeff Bantle, the mission operations manager See datacenter manager. , said the absence of the insulation-covered aluminum panel should not expose any vital shuttle systems to dangerously low temperatures in orbit or to high ones during re-entry RE-ENTRY, estates. The resuming or retaking possession of land which the party lately had. 2. Ground rent deeds and leases frequently contain a clause authorizing the landlord to reenter on the non-payment of rent, or the breach of some covenant, when the into the atmosphere. The plan now, he said, is not to attempt to deploy the stowed parachute on landing to help brake the shuttle's speed on the runway. Bantle said this plan would not add any significant risk or require that Discovery change its landing site from the Kennedy Space Center Kennedy Space Center (Cape Canaveral) U.S. launch site for manned space missions. [U.S. Hist.: WB, So:562] See : Astronautics to Edwards Air Force Base Edwards Air Force Base, U.S. military installation, 301,000 acres (121,805 hectares), S Calif., NE of Lancaster; est. 1933. It is one of the largest air force bases in the United States and has the world's longest runway. in California, where the breadth of the flat desert gives pilots a wide margin for error. For the first half of the shuttle program, the vehicles landed safely without using drag chutes at touchdown. Technicians recovered pieces of the parachute cover scattered around the launching pad after Discovery took off Thursday for its planned nine-day mission. The astronauts were instructed to use a camera on the end of the shuttle's robotic arm to investigate the tail section where the parachute door had been. It is not yet clear whether the parachute is still tucked inside the opening, although engineers think it remained in place and is not likely to deploy prematurely. Except for the missing door, Bantle said, ``The orbiter is in very good shape.'' David Williams, a physician and the director of life sciences at the Johnson Space Center, reported that Glenn ``is really enjoying being back in space, and he's doing really well.'' Glenn, who plans to retire from the U.S. Senate in January, is making his return to space 36 years after he became the first American to orbit Earth. He is the oldest person of any nationality to travel in space. ``You could hear the excitement in his voice,'' Williams said. ``I think he's doing a fantastic job.'' The whole crew, the doctor said, appeared to be robust, extremely busy and very productive during the first 24 hours in orbit. Using a terrestrial expression, he said, ``From a medical perspective, this crew hit the ground running.'' The crew is commanded by Lt. Col. Curtis Brown of the Air Force. The other astronauts are Lt. Col. Steven Lindsey of the Air Force, Dr. Stephen Robinson, Dr. Scott Parazynski, Pedro Duque and Chiaki Mukai. Duque is from Spain, and Mukai is from Japan. When Discovery flew north of Australia on Friday morning, the glowing lights of Perth were clearly visible. Glenn, who had been told to expect them, looked out a shuttle window and he radioed to Mission Control: ``I've got a real good view of Perth - two big centers of light. I think Perth's grown a little since I saw it from this angle last time.'' Brown, Lindsey and Robinson were at the controls in the afternoon when one of the shuttle's payloads was released out of the cargo bay. This was the Petite Amateur Naval Satellite, or Pansat, a small communications satellite designed by students at the Naval Postgraduate School The Naval Postgraduate School is a graduate school operated by the United States Navy. Located in Monterey, California, it grants primarily master's degrees plus some doctoral degrees to its students, who are mostly active duty officers from U.S. and foreign military services. in Monterey, Calif. Although its main purpose is to train military officers in designing, building and operating satellites, Pansat will function for at least a year in the amateur radio frequency range as a kind of space bulletin board for ham radio operators. CAPTION(S): Photo PHOTO (Color) John Glenn, right, joking about floating food, gets laughs from his shuttle crew mates Steve Lindsey, left, and Curt Brown. NASA NASA: see National Aeronautics and Space Administration. NASA in full National Aeronautics and Space Administration Independent U.S. TV/Associated Press |
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